Video Transcript

[Michael] Stacey, people know you as an Evernote Ambassador, spokesperson and consultant, but you also have a really strong connection with the real estate industry.

[Stacey] I’ve always been interested in technology and how it’s digitizing the business. I’ve always gravitated towards social media and technology. As soon as I saw the benefits that digitizing your business brings, I decided I would teach people about it.

[Michael] One of the great advantages to Evernote is its ability to adapt to the way that you work. We discuss CRM’s on the show a lot, and always recommend a CRM process that fits inside your particular business. Stacey, tell us a bit about how Evernote has fit into your lifestyle and way of work.

[Stacey] Most CRM’s that agents work with are one word: structured. The beauty of Evernote is that it is unstructured. It allows you the flexibility and adaptability to evolve as your team grows, or as you shift your focus on your career. The downside to that is that people don’t know how to create a structure inside their own Evernote accounts. The key is to understand the core skills and build a structure that really works for you. That’s where a lot of my teaching comes in.

[Michael] I’ve never known somebody who has started using Evernote, really learned it, and stopped. It becomes such a fundamental part of your life. It helps get you out of your head and moving on with your life.

[Dave] We talk about systems a lot, and this definitely helps. You never wake up in the middle of the night because you just remembered something.

[Michael] Stacey you’ve broken this down into three sections: first, building the Evernote foundations (those core organizational tips). The first three tips are about having the right tools and the right set-up with Evernote and its companion apps.

[Stacey] I think every Evernote user can benefit from dialogues like this. The issue is there are dialogues and tips from so many people. The key is to have everything set-up first so that when you go to your computer, everything you’re learning just appears on your screen. Some of the things we’re going to discuss require a lot of configuration inside Evernote and with their companion apps. You want to have Evernote downloaded on every device, you need to remember your password, the WebClipper needs to be installed, Skitch and Scannable need to be installed.

[Michael] Tip #2 is something that I regret that I didn’t do sooner. Tip #2 is upgrade to Premium.

[Stacey] Most users start on the free version. You can do a lot with the free version. But we’re talking pro-tips here. You need to invest in your business to see the real opportunities that Evernote can provide. #1, you get a larger upload/month limit. You want to be able to put all of your large files in Evernote. This makes your business’s info available wherever you are. You also get larger notes. You can have offline notebooks on your mobile devices. You can search your documents with Premium. Documents that you put INSIDE your Evernote notes. Evernote can index, search, and retrieve information through the premium version through your documents.

[Michael] Is it only in Premium where your handwriting is recognized?

[Stacey] It is offered in all versions in pictures. It will find your handwriting in an image. It’s the extra document scanning that comes with Premium.

[Michael] You can still sit at a coffee shop, take handwritten notes, scan that into Evernote and make them searchable!

[Stacey] Business card scanning is also a Premium feature. This will transform your lead generation. Evernote is on the leading edge of contextual search. They really want to make you smarter. They dish information up that they think you might need when you’re searching. Related notes and Context (on the Mac) are Evernote’s way of bringing you other information you have on certain topics to your attention.

[Stacey] This integration is critical for sales. Make sure your LinkedIn says everything you want it to say, then create the connection within your Evernote account. Once you have that, if you get a lead, or you get a note from a person, and there’s a match between their e-mail account and their LinkedIn… you will see that information at the bottom of your note. The opportunity to increase your LinkedIn connections is important.

Tip 4 is going to be to use Evernote’s business card feature. Michael, I used this with you! Evernote has a camera. On your mobile device, when you open the Evernote app and open the camera, it will automatically find the business card, snap a photo, then give you tons of information and options surrounding the card. It will allow you to e-mail your information directly to the other person or send them a LinkedIn request.

[Michael] We’re talking about simplicity, systems and impressing people, as well. You said, “Can I see your business card?” Not “Can I have it?” Between the waitress bringing us a drink, we were connected on LinkedIn.

[Stacey] I’ve closed business because of that wow factor.

[Michael] Good question just came in. But I hate this… but Scannable is iOS only. What is the future for Android?

[Stacey] The reality is that I don’t know. I can tell you that you can still benefit by using the camera within the Evernote app on the Android. Evernote builds to the opportunities on the platform, so it favors the Mac.

My challenge to the audience to not bring a business card home from a conference. You guys make money through referrals. If you use this business card feature, you will create contact database without ever leaving the location.

That leads to the next tip… if you enable location based tracking services for Evernote on all devices, you will gain even more information. What this is doing is after you create a new note, it will add location data to the note’s metadata. Evernote has an Atlas feature that will map the location of notes that you created. I can say, “I can’t remember his name, but I met him at this particular bar.” I can go to the Vegas map, and find the note that I created right there in the bar with Michael. I can remember the full context of when I met this person.

You can also override a location with where your clients serve so that you have a map of where all of your referrals work.

[Michael] That is a huge opportunity. We always looks for referrals coming our way. If I’m at a client’s house, the default title of the note is the address of the house! You can even pop in on past client’s if you’re in the area. What an opportunity on so many levels for real estate agents.

[Stacey] There’s such a brainstorming opportunity. Think about broker previews or showings… you can scan all of the cards right there, then have a quick link for all of the agents who stopped by.

[Michael] Instant note creation on your phone. Tip #6.

[Stacey] I want to make it as quick as possible for you to get information into your Evernote account. Evernote has some great widgets to add to your mobile device. You can add it to your notification screen, and even if your phone is locked, you can create a note right there! That option is available on both iOS and Android.

[Michael] I haven’t touched paper in eight years. I’m weird about paper now. Talk to us about tip #7, which is considering your phone a scanner.

[Stacey] The goal is not necessarily paperless, but file-less. Now your phone can digitize any piece of paper you come across. Paper can be part of your business, but now it can be digitized. The document scanner within Evernote works for everybody. For those of you that are on iOS, you need to download the companion app, Scannable. It has absolutely transformed my interaction with paper.

[Michael] Scannable is hands down THE best app for scanning. Especially if you’re an Evernote user.

[Stacey] Even if you’re not an Evernote user! You can digitize ANY piece of paper. It puts it into a “transactional” form. You can even do multiple sheets and it will create one document for you. After you’ve scanned it, you can choose where you want to send it. Of course, you can designate a notebook to send it to, you can email it, text it, add it to your camera roll, etc. Aside from the app, I also advocate a particular desktop scanner called the Evernote ScanSnap. It allows you take your phone, and through Bluetooth, I can put the 20 page contract through the scanner, and have it available to anyone via Bluetooth.

[Michael] Does the business card feature work with the windows phone?

[Stacey] Yes!

[Michael] That was tip #7. Tips 8-10 are “back at the office.” #8 is advanced syntax search.

[Stacey] We don’t want to search, we want to find. Once you have enough notes, you need to become familiar with search. With my 13,000 notes, I need to be confidant that I can retrieve when I want. Here are two examples of syntax I use all the time.

First, if you precede your search with IN TITLE: then the word you’re looking for, it will restrict your search to just note titles. If you have naming conventions to your notes and you are purposeful in what you put in the title, you can do a find and find your information quickly! The other is, it will do an “and” search not an “or” search if you put your phrase in quotes. If I did a search for “Stacey Harmon” it will find only notes with that exact phrase in the title.

[Michael] Keyboard shortcuts is next. What are the advantages here?

[Stacey] You can really save time with shortcuts. There are different shortcuts between PC and Mac. First, creating a new note, comman-M or control-M. The second refers to the checklist function. The keyboard command is control-command-t (on Mac). Another Mac one is moving notes around with taking your hands off the keyboard: control-command-M. There’s also a note command where you can duplicate notes, then you can move it wherever you’d like.

[Michael] Tip #10. This one will really has some value. Links, links, links and more links!

[Stacey] This really transformed my business and the way I use Evernote. Links I advocate wholeheartedly. I’ll go through three types of links. The first is pasting outbound links into Evernote. For Dropbox, you can grab a shared link and put it into a note in Evernote that is contextually related to that document. Leave your data where it is, and link to it in Evernote. The second use is Evernote’s native note-linking feature. We discuss in detail in the book, but internal note links in Evernote will let you go from one note to another in one click. This helps create structure in Evernote. Once you do that you can also use those links in other places like say on a calendar. The last one is public note links. You can convert any note in your system to a link that can be opened in a browser!

[Michael] This helps add value without adding time to your day. You can put anything and everything into a note, and then throw up a public link.

[Stacey] I have one more use case that might trigger a few ideas for some people. Creating a note that has all of the required documents to be given to your broker can help templatize that system.

[Michael] Where are you, Dave, with takeaways?

[Dave] Now I know there is so much more that Evernote can do. I’m going to have to incorporate this with my growing team.